{"id":1141877,"date":"2026-08-10T17:32:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1141877\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T17:32:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:32:05","slug":"padel-surges-in-britain-as-pro-game-takes-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1141877\/","title":{"rendered":"Padel surges in Britain as pro game takes shape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-leagues-and-governing-bodies \">The British padel scene \u201chas exploded\u201d over the past five years, but the professional game in the U.K. \u201cis very much in its infancy,\u201d according to Molly McElwee of the London TIMES. In 2021, there \u201cwere a mere 150\u2033 padel courts in the U.K. and \u201cmost people had never even heard of the sport.\u201d Now there are \u201cupwards of 1,500 courts.\u201d Although padel \u201cwas mainly limited to Latin America and Spain\u201d for decades after its invention in Mexico in 1969, it \u201chas spread globally in recent years.\u201d The U.K. was \u201clate to the party,\u201d but there has \u201cbeen a boom since the pandemic.\u201d The \u201cdrastic increase in demand has caused court fees to rocket, averaging between\u201d about $41 and $68 an hour, but reaching up to $135 at some London clubs. As London hosted its first Premier Padel event last week, the city\u2019s Olympia venue \u201cwas transformed\u201d into a state-of-the-art padel stadium, with tickets \u201csold out from Thursday through to Sunday\u201d and spectators \u201cpacking out the 4,000-seater Centre Court.\u201d The event was also \u201cstreamed live on TNT Sports.\u201d Fifty-two of the 96 men who started the tournament on Tuesday \u201cwere from Spain.\u201d On the women\u2019s side, the Spanish dominance \u201cis even starker: 42 of 56 competitors\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/sport\/tennis\/article\/padel-outgrow-tennis-but-will-rising-costs-halt-boom-5nd7zc5fb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/sport\/tennis\/article\/padel-outgrow-tennis-but-will-rising-costs-halt-boom-5nd7zc5fb\">London TIMES, 8\/9<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British padel scene \u201chas exploded\u201d over the past five years, but the professional game in the U.K.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1141878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,3695,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-1141877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-sustainability","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117072412119908082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1141878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}